Home Love
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Everybody Hates Hitler tag: The bunker's not home, but...it's not bad.


**Home Love**  
K Hanna Korossy

" _If you don't have your own love, there's nothing like home love…"_

They limped back to the bunker.

 _Home_ , Dean had already dubbed it, but the two of them had always differed in their definition of home. A real home wouldn't be about hunting; it was supposed to be a retreat, an escape from the dangers and horrors of the world out there. But the bunker was a great workplace, and even though they'd found it only a few days before, Sam was already glad to be getting back. It was the home base they'd lacked since Bobby's, a safe place to stow their stuff, an ideal library for research.

And it had a well-stocked medical treatment room.

"You sure it's all gone? No pain, numbness, anything like that?"

"No," Sam answered patiently for the ninety-sixth time. "Dude, the spell died with Torvald." Dean had called it a poison, but the effects were purely mystical. The only residue left was a little soreness in his neck from the dart.

But he'd seen Dean's white face when he'd regained consciousness on the library steps, felt the tremor in his hands as he'd patted Sam down, pushed the hair back off his sweaty face, kept a palm resting on his chest, over his heart. Dean had actually stayed with him and sent the Golem after the Nazi agent instead of going after the guy himself, and that said everything about how scared Dean had been of losing him.

So he obediently sat now and let Dean check his pulse and temp and eyes, slather antibiotic on his neck and probe the bruises on his ribs. He let his brother be his big brother, until he saw Dean grab the edge of the bed as he turned too fast, and enough was enough.

"Okay, your turn." He slid off the diagnostic table and nudged Dean to take his place.

Dean frowned. "I wasn't—"

"Yeah," Sam said flatly, "You were. I'm not the one who went flying across a parking lot, into a car." He couldn't even believe Dean had gotten up after that one; the Golem was _strong._

Dean glared at him.

Sam glared back.

His brother's shoulders finally sank. "Whatever, Florence." He inched up onto the table, and Sam didn't miss his wince as he did.

"You wanna take off your shirt, or you want me to?"

Dean shrugged out of his flannel with painful care, and just glowered at Sam after that. That was as close as Sam would get to an request for help, and he used the surgical scissors to slice Dean's tee off.

He didn't bother asking where it hurt; the answer was obviously "everywhere." Dean had hit the car with his feet, the pavement all along his side. Sam still felt chilled at the memory of watching Dean fly through the air, those few seconds of terror that he'd break his back, his neck. Now he felt along the bruised spine and purple-splotched side with careful fingers, checking for broken bones, torn muscles, heat spots and swelling. There was less than he'd expected—layers were a hunter's friend, and Sam suspected sometimes that all that angelic healing had left some sort of layer of protection behind, too—but he put antibiotic cream on the open injuries, rubbed ointment into the rest, and dug out a chemical cooling pack for Dean's hip. His brother had never been able to hide a limp from him.

Dean roused himself long enough to make a couple of lame jokes about BenGay and Golems and fighting Nazis, and Sam humored him as he made sure his brother wasn't bleeding into his gut or brain. He seemed okay. They were both okay. Another few hours, and Sam's heart might actually start believing his head.

"You turning in?" Dean asked as he carefully slid off the table.

"No," Sam said, putting the supplies back where they belonged, ready for next time. Dean had already replaced the out-of-date stuff with new goods. A "home" with an ER in it; Sam mentally shook his head. "Think I'm gonna read for a while."

Dean's mouth curled. "Geek," he said, and Sam knew it was meant as mockery but it came out too fond.

"Troglodyte," he shot back mildly.

Dean looked momentarily nonplussed, and Sam knew he'd be consulting Google before Sam saw him again.

He just didn't expect that to be so quickly.

Sam washed up and wandered into the library, finding a book on Jewish mysticism to supplement what he'd learned that week. He was anticipating adding their experiences to the MoL files, but that could wait until he wasn't so beat.

He hadn't even realized at first that Dean had joined him, wrapped in his cozy "dead man's robe." Moving carefully, his brother dropped a bag of Doritos and a dog-eared novel on the table, then settled into the chair across from Sam with a relieved sigh. Still without a word, he popped the bag open and dug in as he started reading.

It was like a thousand other nights: resting up after an exhausting and/or painful hunt, not in a hurry to find the next one, just chilling with a movie or a few hands of poker or reading. But most of those nights had been in motel rooms where all they had was shared living space. Here there were, like, fifty other rooms Dean could have settled in, including his own bedroom, or a room with a flat-screen TV, one of the first things Dean had bought for the bunker. But he was here instead. Reading. Just wanting to be together.

There was a reason Sam hadn't turned in even though he was dead on his feet.

He reached for the Doritos, biting back a smile as Dean pulled the bag away from him without even looking. "There's Cheetos in the kitchen."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Maybe I want Doritos."

Dean gave him a withering look that said he saw right through Sam's laziness, but he reluctantly turned the bag to share. Sam didn't take advantage, only snagging a couple. He really did like Cheetos better.

"What're you reading?" he asked through a mouthful of orange crumbs when he realized he'd been trying to read the title of Dean's book for some time without success.

" _Christine_ ," Dean murmured, then glanced up. "Should I even ask what you've got?"

"Book on golems," Sam said shortly because the title had about twenty words in it, and he knew Dean would check out after the first three.

"Huh." Dean suddenly smiled. "Nazis, Sam. We hunted zombie freakin' Nazis."

He was surprised by his own grin. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"S'awesome. Even Henry would've been impressed."

The reminder tempered their glee a little, but not completely. "Yeah," Sam said, smile softer now. "He would've."

He and Dean looked at each other a moment, not needing to say more. They each knew better than anyone else in the world what the other had lost, what he'd gone through to get to that moment. And just before Dean shook his head and went back to crunching Doritos, Sam saw the same gleam of contentment he felt inside himself.

Maybe he wasn't ready to call the place home, but sitting there snacking and reading with his brother, it was the closest Sam had come in a very long time.

 **The End**


End file.
